


empty (like swallowing the sun won't give you warmth)

by angstyfanboi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Depression, Derealization, Dissociation, Draco Malfoy-centric, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Not Beta Read, POV Second Person, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:02:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29849541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angstyfanboi/pseuds/angstyfanboi
Summary: You breathe because, by now, you're far too entranced in your own rituals, just like you look at him because every time you looked away he left and you no longer know how it feels not to look at him.And he's not even the last person you see, but it's fitting, and you know it.You don't deserve to see him last, so it's just you and an unknown merman in the cold room that watched you grow.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Kudos: 12





	empty (like swallowing the sun won't give you warmth)

**Author's Note:**

> Read tags for trigger warnings. In case you haven't:
> 
> TW : Implied rape  
> TW: Implied suicide and suicide ideation  
> TW: dissociation  
> TW: derealization  
> TW: mental illnesses (depression and PTSD)
> 
> Drarry is not the main focus of this story, read with caution.

You look at him because you never learned how to look away. Take him in ( _and apart_ ), because you’ve had to let go of many things but memories were never one of them.

Nothing else left to do but to stare, and to tattoo simple actions into the crevices of your brain, break open your ribcage to claw your heart out and fill the emptiness in your chest with him ( _body, voice, heart, soul. Magic and humanity and everything, all of him. Not enough, never enough._ )

You look at him because-

He never looks back. He’s above you and not in the ways you want but in the ways that- perhaps- that…

In the ways that you deserve.

You’re nothing.

( _And you’re still nothing even if you fill yourself with thoughts of him, who’s everything_.)

And when he looks, through you, never at you, because even when he does, he never- never sees _you_ for who you are, and it’s angering and not surprising at all, it stuns you but it doesn’t- it-…

It hurts because, above all, above _him_ , you want to be seen.

But you never are. You’re a void, an empty spot. You’re no one. And you know it.

And when he looks at you, through you, of course, that’s not surprising, and his eyes are _green green green_ and you think of _Slytherin green, ambition green, pride green_ ( _but also_ ruination green, disappointment green, _loss_ green) but it’s so unlike all of those because that green is laden in pain and pride huge enough it burned too high, too deep, too long, and his green is laden in pain that never started small, never had to grow from nothing because it had always been there and he preserves and you don’t-

Don’t breathe-

Don’t walk forward-

Stuck-

Again-

There. Gone.

( _Or maybe never there, therefore, never gone._ )

And you wonder, ‘Is this real?’, ‘Will I wake up at some point to be more than… this? Whatever it is that I am now?’ Wonder if opening your eyes, in between dusk and dawn, will have you waking up to _more_. Something, _anything_ , because yes, you’ve let go of many things, neither of them memories and neither of them your greediness, the ability to open your hands and grab whatever you want, whatever you can and can’t take but now you’re empty, empty empty emptyemptyemptyemptyempty so empty like swallowing the sun won’t give you warmth, swallowing stars won’t fill you up, and all that’s left to try is memories but to think you’ll have to give those up at some point is-

Terrifying. You’re terrified. Feeling lost, in a maze ( _not a maze, not a maze, those memories don’t leave though those are the ones you wouldn’t mind losing_ ).

You look at him because you never learned how to look away. Take him in ( _and apart_ ), because you’ve had to let go of many things but memories were never one of them.

You look at him, but he doesn’t ever look back because this is all your fault and you know it and you can’t fix it and the war is over outside but in your head you still hear loud loud screaming and see an evil evil man and feel his bony bony fingers and taste bitter bitter ashes and smell cold cold death. And the war is over outside but you look at him, at his green green eyes and you see they’re haunted with other curses, and other men, and other fingers, and other ashes, and other deaths.

You doubt he looks at you and sees the same, because you don’t doubt he sees you as an enemy that was pardoned for his mistakes.

( _You don’t forgive yourself, but no one ever cares about that and you can’t blame them_.)

And you look at him because, at the end of the day, you’ve always been looking at him from the moment you met and lost yourself from the moment you met and will never find yourself again because now you’re nothing.

And he’s everything.

What a sick joke, to love ( _or whatever those lousy twists you feel in the coils of your molten heart are called, the ones that feel like a leap past the edge of a precipice, the ones that make your heart quicken and blood go hot as it rushes to your cheeks and makes you uncontrolled, unrestrained, wanting to prove yourself and to push his buttons and make him notice you and talk to you and stop pushing you away though you know you caused that_ ) the one person who won’t ever be caught dead loving you back.

So, there’s not much to do. Life doesn’t start set in stone, but the more time goes and the more decisions you make, the harder it is to change your fate.

And yours is already written down. And you- want, _need_ , but won’t ever be able to erase it.

( _You deserve it, and you know you deserve it, but it doesn’t stop hurting either._ )

At some point, you get up. Your joints ache, but it barely registers because you feel like you’re not even there to begin with, like somehow something went wrong, and you’ve disconnected from yourself. But you keep pushing yourself up, ignore your friend as she carefully, worriedly reaches out for you, and walk to your room where you won’t need to _look_ at him— because it’s not a matter of wanting to do it, sometimes, sometimes you just find yourself doing it and by then it’s already too hard to focus on something else—, where you can be no one and nothing by yourself, where the noise will be just as much as you are and the silence will be easier to face on an empty stomach. Though you’re sure the emptiness didn’t really begin there, and it’s just too heavy to restrict it within your chest.

Your room is cold, no one uses the fireplace anymore so it’s always dark now, especially at night, but there are slivers of flickering beams from the lake, and you can see shadows of merpeople and wild lake life and they snicker at you but it’s not- and you take a second to find the word because your feelings have been bottled up for far too long, always out of sight and out of mind, so now you need to reconnect to that part of yourself and you fall just short of it and you’re-… something. Unnamed. But there. It’s a far cry from the emptiness and it’s palpable and suddenly you know that the burning under your feet makes you real.

As you lie down, the mattress soft enough your bones sigh in relief, you feel them rumble like they’re thanking you, you think back to the potion you had before dinner. The one that you forbid yourself from taking until the shade was as far from _his_ green as possible, though there must be some kind of poetic irony in it being the hue of your Slytherin robes, and the one that didn’t taste like bitter bitter ashes— tasted like wind and musk and river waters— and didn’t smell like cold cold death— smelled like stardust and morning dew and hot chocolate— and you sigh too.

You feel light, not like those feelings you dared name love. You don’t leap knowing you’ll fall, you fall knowing a leap wouldn’t make a difference and it’s like flying without a broomstick and it’s warm where you previously stood so cold and you turn to the side, to the merman looking at you with a goodbye upon his lips and you smile and remember because you’re fading away and it’s finally freedom and you _know_ you _finally know_ and-

And you’re relieved. And the merpeople aren’t unking and you were frustrated and the emptiness is because of guilt and longing for a change and you-

You close your eyes.

You don’t open them again.


End file.
